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September 18, 2024
Hi Steve,
Pardon the mid-week interruption. Rather than wait until Sunday to send a long newsletter, I wanted to share Ken Stern's remarkable testimony yesterday at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on hate crimes in America as well as some thoughts on why we should oppose the Antisemitism Awareness Act (in the in case you missed it section).
If you are confused about definitions of antisemitism or how to fight antisemitism, you owe it to yourself to read Stern's testimony in its entirety.
Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, which works to increase the serious study of human hatred and ways to combat it. Before that, he directed the Justus and Karin Rosenberg Foundation, a philanthropy focused on hate, and before that, he was the director of the American Jewish Committee’s division on antisemitism and extremism, where he worked for 25 years. While at AJC he was the lead drafter of the text of what is now known as the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
His written testimony included the following summary, which I am reprinting in its entirety because it serves as an excellent guide to understanding these issues:
• Antisemitism, at its most dangerous, has two elements: 1) A claim that Jews conspire to harm humanity, and 2) that that conspiracy explains what goes wrong in the world.
• Antisemitism is more than just about Jews, it’s a threat to democracy, it’s a miner’s canary for the health of societies. But the flip side, frequently ignored, is also true – that hatred of non-Jews can be the engine for antisemitism, something that becomes invisible when we focus only on parsing what is said about Jews, let alone Israel.
• The Tree of Life mass murder was clearly antisemitic, but was animated by a drumbeat of dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric by political leaders. No one would say the killing of Mexican-Americans and Mexicans at the Wal-Mart in El Paso a few months later should be classified as an act of antisemitism. But the two shooters had virtually identical ideologies; they just chose different targets. We need to look at antisemitism with a wide lens, not reduce it to who says what, particularly about Israel.
• When people hate they crave simplicity and certainty, and binary good/bad thinking. This is a human characteristic rooted in how we divide the world into who is “us” and who is “them.” People who combat hate are also human and seek the seductive illusion of simple answers to complicated problems. Now the seductively simple, and illogical, tool is to employ IHRA.
• Legally endorsing a binary – whether as the UN did when it adopted the Zionism=racism resolution in 1975, or the current attempt to use IHRA to legislate its mirror image (that anti-Zionism is antisemitism) – harms democracy and Jews and others, and is inappropriate for legislation.
• One rule for fighting hate is to change the scenario and see if the same rules apply. Would Congress adopt a legislatively-endorsed definition of racism that included political examples? There is a correlation (as opposed to causation) between some expressions about Israel and antisemitism. One might argue that to take a temperature of racism, a definition might include opposition to affirmative action or opposition to Black Lives Matter or opposition to the removal of Confederate statues as data points. The official labeling of those who hold these views as “racist” would be wrong. Likewise, the tarring of people who have different views about Israel and Zionism.
• When the House passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, some members voted against it, pointing to the IHRA example of Jews killing Jesus as an exemplar of antisemitism. Deicide is indeed an example of how antisemitism has been expressed, but the opponents noted that many Americans have deeply religious beliefs about the death of Jesus that would be classified by the government as antisemitic. Senator Marshall said that he would vote for the legislation in the Senate, but propose an amendment to strike that one example. It is hard to imagine a clearer admission that the legislation targets expression and belief.
• Using IHRA in this way also encourages the ubiquitous use of the terms “antisemite” and “antisemitism,” when they are words that should be sparingly used, so they don’t lose their sting. More often, and particularly about Israel, the problem is binary thinking, not antisemitism.
• There is a difficult internal Jewish communal debate about whether one has to be a Zionist to be within the Jewish “tent.” I am a Zionist. But I know many young Jews whose Judaism leads them to anti-Zionism. I disagree with them, but it is wrong to call them “unJews,” let alone antisemites. This debate, of who is inside or outside the tent, is an internal one for the Jewish community to resolve, if it can, but the IHRA proponents are essentially asking Congress to weigh in, raising Church-State implications.
• It would be helpful if instead of classifying expressions as hateful, Congress underscored the distinction that too many universities are missing. Views seen as hateful should indeed be countered, but not suppressed by law. No student, whether they are in a protected class or not, should be bullied, harassed, intimidated, targeted with true threats, or discriminated against. But students, in order to become critical thinkers, should not be protected from hearing things with which they disagree, whether it be conservative speakers or ones from the far left.
• There are many things that a campus can and should do about antisemitism, including training, student surveys, and improved and expanded teaching (and research about) antisemitism, hate, binary thinking, and how to have difficult discussions. There are also intriguing and promising ideas about using AI in this effort.
• Congress should support efforts that will actually help in the battle against antisemitism. Removing the IHRA definition from the Countering Antisemitism Act, and funding the action-oriented National Strategy would help. Likewise, Congress should support new initiatives to counter hate and hate crime, including those designed to help victims, and also efforts to bring Americans – on and off campus – together despite difficult disagreements. I discuss a couple of these in my full testimony.
If any of the above is not clear, please read the full testimony.
The other witnesses were Maya Berry and Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq (that's really how he identified himself in his written testimony). It's clear from Goldfeder's testimony that he could have benefited from Stern's testimony about the IHRA definition.
Certain self-declared "leaders" of the Jewish community who purport to speak in our names could benefit from reading it too. If you don't understand why fighting other hate crimes is essential in the fight against antisemitism, re-read Stern's testimony. That's why it made sense to include other hate crimes in this hearing even though two of the three witnesses focused mainly on antisemitism.
Stern told me last night that "Maya is a leader in the civil rights community. She serves as the Co-Chair of the Hate Crime Task Force at the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights. Her work on hate crimes against ALL is appreciated by everyone who works in the field, and [selecting her to testify] was an excellent choice. People can disagree about Israel and still find hate crimes against anyone deplorable."
Sen. John Kennedy's (R-LA) badgering of Berry was contemptible. Through his ignorance, Kennedy illustrated why this hearing was necessary.
I'll be back bright and early on Sunday with the regular newsletter.
Five Items You Might Have Missed:
1) Can legitimate campus protest be distinguished from antisemitism? This guide aims to help. This is the guide, and if you read Stern's testimony, you understand why this guide is superior to other guides that reduce what is and is not antisemitism to false binaries.
2) From a Northwestern University student: Republicans say they're standing up for Jewish college students against campus antisemitism. They're not.
3) Jacob Heilbrun explains the long history of American conservatives sanitizing the Nazis, of which JD Vance's refusal to condemn Tucker Carlson's platforming of a Holocaust denier is only the latest manifestation.
4) Remember when those university heads got criticized for talking about context? For the IHRA definition, context is everything. Makes you wonder if the Republican members of Congress who support codifying the IHRA definition have even read it.
5) Contrary to some reports, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has not committed to bringing the Antisemitism Awareness Act to the floor for a vote, nor should he. The Antisemitism Awareness Act, with its emphasis on the IHRA definition of antisemitism, is misguided legislation that will not help solve antisemitism on campus or anywhere else. Michelle Goldberg explains why Senators need to stop the Antisemitism Awareness Act. This thread from the Nexus Project and this article from Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) provide further reasons to oppose the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Alan Solow explains that the Antisemitism Awareness Act's "claim to helping combat the disturbing surge in anti-Jewish incidents across the United States is, upon closer examination, little more than a symbolic gesture that could actually weaken the fight against this bigotry."
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved 2022 and 2023 Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder. If someone forwarded this to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism and on the IHRA definition of antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
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